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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29862447">The Nightstalker</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LancePuns/pseuds/LancePuns'>LancePuns</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dungeons &amp; Dragons (Roleplaying Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bandits &amp; Outlaws, Blood and Violence, Character Study, Gen, Vigilantism</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:54:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,638</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29862447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LancePuns/pseuds/LancePuns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"This world and its evils had no sympathy for me. My family or my friends. So why should I show sympathy for scum?”</p><p>Or: What would happen if Katrina failed to free her master from the Watcher Nexus?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Nightstalker</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Katrina was my first DnD character that I really mastered playing, I've been playing as her for well over a year now and her character is so so interesting. I had an idea a while back and wrote this whole thing out, but I never ended up posting it...until I found it today and thought "fuck it".</p><p>I think I gave enough context for you to understand what's going on or speculate what's happened at least, but if you have questions, let me know! I'm happy to answer as best I can.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Snap. Thump. Thud.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>One bandit down. Four to go. The scuttling across the fallen forest leaves and the broken twigs on the ground alert her to the location of two more as she holsters the light crossbow to her belt, disappearing back into the darkness that surrounds the camp. The two bandits that saw where she shot from arrive at the tree, but see no sign of the tabaxi they both swear was there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bandit, an elf, asks rhetorically, “Where did that blasted cat go?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How the fuck should I know?” The other, an aarakocra, exclaims, no less annoyed they missed their attacker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep an eye out, they can’t have gotten far. I’m going to get the others.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>One step. Another. Left. Right. Quicker. Left, right, left, right.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The elf was gone, and the rogue pounced. From above, she landed on the aarakocra, the hidden blade within her gauntlet activating and piercing the brain of the bird-like race. The bandit didn’t have a chance to react at all, laying dead as the rogue stood from his body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two bandits down, three to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She quickly disappeared into the trees once again, traversing the treeline by walking across the branches and as she surveyed the area for her targets. The elf had gotten back to their camp, looking at the other remaining bandits - a goblin and a leonin. Beside the goblin was the first bandit she had killed tonight, a tiefling sorcerer who was a little too confident the noise she heard was simply the animals of the forest before getting shot in the head. She got to the base of the tree she was at now and climbed down as she stayed hidden from the bandits. Putting her back against the hard bark, she peered out and listened to her targets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We lost ‘em,” the elf stated, and was swiftly cut off by the leonin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You guys had one damn job,” she yelled, stomping on the ground to shut him up and probably terrify him. It looked like it worked. The leonin sighed, “where’s Alendir?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I left him back at the-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s dead, isn’t he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The elf’s mouth was agape, and he thought a moment before he closed his mouth and shrugged. “Probably. Alendir, you still there?” Silence for a few moments, and with his back turned and the goblin is a druid, the rogue thought now may be the time to strike. She’d be left with two others, one of which being a swashbuckler. If she wasn’t fast, she’d likely die.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she had nothing to lose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling two keen daggers from her belt, she threw one at the elf, and it sank deep into his back, right where the heart was. The other dagger sank into the leonin’s shoulder, but that did not prevent the leonin from pulling it out and tossing it aside as she looked at the rogue. “There you are,” she growls, anger growing more and more evident in her voice as it approaches more of a lion’s roar as time continues.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three down, two to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rogue summoned her rapier, the swashbuckler pulled out her long sword, and the druid readied her staff. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rogue moves like a streak of lightning as she appears behind the goblin, moving to kick the staff away and disarm one of her foes. However, the druid is ready and summons a Grasping Vine to pull the rogue away. Neither plan works perfectly, as the kick from the rogue is unable to disarm the druid but it is able to put her on her side as the vine tugs her back enough to be out of reach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With an opening, the swashbuckler attacks, charging forward with a powerful slash towards the tabaxi, and the rogue is only just barely able to deflect it past her body with the help of her rapier. Using her hidden blade, the tabaxi cuts the vines enough to free herself, and she shoots her grappling hook from the gauntlet, aiming for the tree just past both of her enemies as she zipped past them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now standing in front of the treeline, she quickly aimed her grappling hook at the goblin’s staff and fired, grabbing the staff and pulling it. The goblin did her best to hold her ground, but the pull of the grappling hook was too great for her as she skids across the floor of the forest, landing straight into the rapier of the rogue, who watched as their body falls into a hollow state. The goblin’s skin goes pale, the blood slowly oozes out of the wound, her eyes flicker in fear as the light in them goes dark. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Four down. One remaining.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who the hell are you?” the leonin commands more than asks and points her longsword at the rogue. “You, alone, track the five of us down in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. You pick us off one by one. You know your way around a fight. But you definitely aren’t some law enforcement, they wouldn’t be nearly as ruthless to small-time bandits like us. So what’s your angle, cat?” Her eyes narrow as she looks at her team’s assailant in rage. Five seconds of silence pass before she adds, “ANSWER ME!” a roar enveloping her words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The rogue only glares at her as she begins to approach, her rapier grasped tightly in her paw as she points it back at the leonin. “You do commit sin against good people. That’s all the reason I need.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She charges forward, attempting a forward trust while the swashbuckler parries with a swing and retaliates. The slash misses its mark, the tabaxi ducking and sliding right underneath the leonin. Using the hidden blade, she stabs her opponent in the ankle and stands up on the other side, ten feet behind her now screaming enemy. The leonin gets angrier, turning with another cut aimed straight for the assailant’s legs, but the tabaxi is ready and jumps right over the cut and kicks her target across the face. The leonin staggers, falling on the ground trying to regain composure. She can hear the grappling hook launch, and she looks up to see that her opponent has disappeared without a trace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything is quiet for a moment. She can’t hear the movements of her assailant, and she can’t see the blurry of her cloak. She can only locate her when she feels herself get stabbed through the back of her stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tabaxi pulls the hidden blade out of her victim and walks around to her front, kicking the longsword away. “I knew a leonin once. He did what he thought was right,” the rogue says, wiping her hidden blade clean of the blood she just spilled. “Compared to him, you are </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she says, venom practically dripping out of her mouth as she spits out the insult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She removes her hood and pulls down her face cover to show off her full head, a silver tabaxi with a look of full disdain on her face. It’s at that moment the leonin’s eyes widen. “I know you...the one they call the Nightstalk-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s interrupted by the tabaxi slapping her with her claws out. The leonin shook her head in pain, feeling the claw marks across her face as pain coursed through her. “My name is Katrina Midnight.” She kicked the leonin in the gut, right where the wound was on the other side, causing the dying creature to grunt and cough up blood. “Now, do you have any last words?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The coughing persisted for a moment before the leonin was able to calm her throat enough to speak again. After a couple of deep breaths, she muttered, “why do you do this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Katrina glared, pulling out her Mortus Maelstrom and pointing it at the heart of the leonin. “Because this world and its evils had no sympathy for me. My family or my friends. So why should I show sympathy for scum?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The leonin began to move her mouth, but no words came out as the rapier plunged into her chest, the same process that happened to the goblin began on her. The blood that had been oozing out slows considerably, her eyes flicker in anger before being snuffed out completely, leaving behind an empty husk of a leonin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Five bandits down. Every target eliminated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she looks around the camp, digging for weapons, ammo, supplies, anything that may be useful for her travels. And it is while she is looking around that she begins to hear things. She pays them no mind, but the more she rummages through the belongings of those she’s killed, the more she hears.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You host the first demon. I can not let you live.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The father said.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No one wants you here. You were rejected by your adoptive father. Your existence only hurts others.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The cleric said.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Saving his soul? You will fail. And you will lose him.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The keeper said.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You’re going mad. I can’t let you keep doing this to yourself. You’re becoming the very thing you hate, Katrina.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The sister said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this point, there was but a single voice she could hear in her head that would not distress her. The stern yet kindhearted voice of the goddess of death.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You have nothing left. I’m sorry. But I can give you purpose again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>That purpose was, apparently, collecting the souls of those who have committed atrocities towards other humanoid souls. The Mortus Maelstrom, a sign of their first temporary contract, became the sign of their new, permanent contract. And its power has become more and more addictive as time went on, killing bandits left and right, without mercy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too much time has gone by for her to move away from this lifestyle. This is her fate.</span>
</p>
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